The Case for Blogging in the Ruins

An excellent blog post on why blog posts are best -> https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-case-for-blogging-in-the-ruins/

When I write for social media, I’m writing for someone who is one thumb-flick away from a video of either a hate crime or a dog riding a skateboard. Everything I produce has to compete, in real-time, with everything else that could possibly occupy that user’s attention. The incentives push toward provocation and emotional activation. The format actively punishes nuance, which means that a thoughtful caveat reads as weakness and any acknowledgment of uncertainty looks like waffling.

and this…

What Makes a Blog Actually Work

Most blogs are abandoned after three posts. The ones that persist // accumulate value have a few things on common:

• They have a perspective, not just a topic. A blog about “marketing” is forgettable. A blog about “why most marketing advice is wrong and what actually works” has a point of view that gives every post something to push against.
• They build. The best blogs create posts that reference and extend earlier posts, developing ideas over time rather than starting from scratch each week. Gwern’s site is an extreme example, with entries that get updated for years, accumulating evidence and refinement. But even a modest version of this works: a body of work that compounds.
• They’re written for someone specific. Not “everyone interested in X” but “the person who already knows Y and is trying to figure out Z.” Specificity creates resonance.
• They exist at a consistent address. A blog at your own domain, with permanent URLs, can be found and referenced for years. Content locked inside platforms disappears when the platform changes or dies.
• Their authors accept that most posts won’t go viral, and that’s fine. The value is cumulative. A blog with fifty solid posts is an asset even if no single post ever breaks through. Most social media content has a half-life of hours; a good blog post can draw readers for a decade.

So well stated. And I don’t think I can criticize the media platforms wholesale because what they do is bundle everything (messaging, discovery, networks) and then make it seamless. But it’s that bundling that makes it tricky for human brains. And as the platforms move more towards messaging – I hope more creators seize the opportunity to move creation to where it makes more sense (blogs & YouTube IMHO).